I was taught (and abide by) the practice of always starting with cutting any troubling frequencies and then deciding if any boosting is required anywhere. The main reason is that EQ is a gain stage, and by boosting from the start, you're eating up headroom and increasing the chances for distortion and phase issues at a summing bus (submaster or main mix). I almost never track with EQ mainly to avoid stacking phase shifts onto the tracks. Shoot for good sounds up front with mic choice & placement, instrument choice, new strings, etc.........my 2cents.